Tag: Canada

Recently, a Chinese vaccine scandal has been reported in many news sources. According to these reports, a Chinese vaccine manufacturer produced and marketed “low-quality” vaccines for infants. Moreover, they falsified production and inspection data on a rabies vaccine – as I’ve written before, rabies is a deadly disease, with almost 100% mortality after symptoms appear, and the vaccine is the only choice to save lives.

This is an appalling story on so many levels. Authorities in the country had lax enforcement and regulation of their vaccine industry – the government was attacked on social media about the situation, a rarity in a communist country where free speech is strictly limited. As a result, the Chinese government will begin regulating their vaccine manufacturers more closely, although it may be too little and too late.

On the other hand, Hong Kong utilizes mostly “Western” manufactured vaccines, which has led to many Chinese citizens going to that autonomous region to get their children vaccinated. There are websites devoted to showing how parents can avoid Chinese vaccines and get the “good stuff.”

These kinds of outrageous ethical lapses generally do not happen in the USA, Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, and many other countries. Falsifying data can lead to severe criminal prosecution and civil penalties, something that is far beyond the response from Chinese authorities to this scandal.

Of course, this has led to one of the most ridiculous myths of the anti-vaccine world – our vaccines are dangerous because they were manufactured in China. Under most circumstances, this would be a laughable myth, but with this Chinese vaccine scandal, it’s important that we know where our vaccines are manufactured – spoiler alert, they are made in the USA, Europe, Canada, and Japan, all of which have strict regulation of the pharmaceutical industry. Continue reading “Chinese vaccine scandal – not a concern for USA and many other countries”

Autoimmune diseases are conditions where the immune system has an abnormal response to normal cells in the body. Celiac disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, multiple sclerosis, and many other conditions are as a result of an autoimmune disorder. We don’t know what causes the autoimmunity, but there is almost no biological plausibility that any vaccine could induce the disease.

This new internet meme is based on a peer-reviewed article published in a real journal. But as I have written time and again, just because an article seems like it has sterling credentials, it doesn’t mean the article is above criticism. We’ll get to this article below.

Here we go again. We recently wrote about Diane Harper, another “lead developer” of the HPV vaccines, who has a rather complicated view on HPV vaccines. She makes disparaging remarks about the vaccine, yet her peer reviewed publications are generally favorable to the HPV vaccine. Genevieve Rail, a kinesiology researcher at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada is the next one being pushed by anti-vaccine activists.

Outrageous claims are made about Genevieve Rail’s expertise with HPV vaccines, like Gardasil. And she helps with the claims by making outlandish comments about the vaccine:

“I’m sort of raising a red flag, out of respect for what I’ve found in my own study, and for the despair of parents who had totally perfect 12-year-olds who are now in their beds, too tired to go to school. Yes, we’re going against the grain, and we are going against those who are believed, i.e. doctors and nurses and people in public health.”

That old Senate gadfly, Bernie Sanders, tried to win points as the self-proclaimed leader of the Democratic party by proposing a naive and impractical amendment to the Senate health care law to allow Americans to import Canadian drugs. The amendment specifically stated that it would “establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to lower prescription drug prices for Americans by importing drugs from Canada.”

To be fair to Senator Booker, his office issued a statement to the media after the vote. It said he supports the importation of prescription drugs but that “any plan to allow the importation of prescription medications should also include consumer protections that ensure foreign drugs meet American safety standards. I opposed an amendment put forward last night that didn’t meet this test.”

In other words Sen. Booker and others are saying that, before we import Canadian drugs, let’s make sure they are safe. Yes, Canada’s drug distribution is fairly safe, but it’s not perfect. There are a lot of issues of safety that should be considered (and Sanders did not, because I’m beginning to be convinced his analytical skills are weak). But there’s a bigger concern – would Canada allow this to happen, and why would they? And that is the concern that Sanders failed to acknowledge.

Let me be absolutely clear. The USA needs some sort of drug pricing regulation, although I doubt it will happen under the Trump administration for lots of reasons.

The antivaccine hate speech is a fundamental strategy of their vaccine denialism. I’ve spoken about it before, but the vitriolic attacks on Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a frequent contributor here and a renowned expert on vaccines and law, any time she speaks about vaccines has moved into the surreal.

Just as an aside, there used to be an amusing trend on Wikipedia whereby pseudoscience-pushing editors would accuse various editors of being the real Dr. Gorski. One of my sockpuppets was accused of being that, which made me laugh. I am not, nor have I ever been, David Gorski. Though I admit my ego is gratified to be thrown into the same conspiracy theories with an esteemed researcher and physician, even if it’s proposed by tinfoil hat wearing lunatics.

Most of the early data was in reduction of cancer rates, especially for cervical cancer, in women. Part of this bias was because the HPV vaccine was originally just indicated for girls and young women. But more recently, the vaccine was approved in most areas of the world to be used with boys and young men.

However, a new study is out that gives us more evidence that the vaccine will prevent cancer in men. And that’s more good news if you’re looking for an effective way to prevent some cancers.

There are lots of quacks out on the internet that make all kinds of nonsense claims about how to prevent cancer. Eat blueberries. Eat kale. Eat GMO-free, organic blueberry kale soy sherbet.

I’ll bet there are thousands of claims made by charlatans to prevent cancer. But really, there are just a handful of ways to actually prevent cancer. Avoid tobacco smoke. Avoid the sun. Keep a healthy low weight. Avoid alcohol.

And get the HPV vaccine, known as Gardasil. Yes, Gardasil prevents cancer (actually, there are two, the other being the hepatitis B vaccine, but we’ll get to that in another article).

Now, there is even more evidence, from a huge research study, that supports the fact that Gardasil prevents cancer in young women.

And vaccinate them against human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes over 5% of the cancers world wide. Gardasil, which is now a more powerful anti-cancer vaccine, is available throughout most of the world and is indicated for use in girls and boys to prevent a variety of dangerous and disfiguring cancers. Lots of people think there are magical supplements and foods that prevent cancer, but there’s little or no science that supports it. If you want a magical prevention, there’s nothing better than getting Gardasil (known as Silgard in some parts of the world).

For trivia purposes only, the other places that celebrate a similar Thanksgiving are Liberia (which is populated by descendants of freed slaves who returned to Africa from the US), Grenada (a small English-speaking island in the Caribbean), Puerto Rico (a Spanish-speaking territory of the USA), and Norfolk Island Australia. Australia?

Generally, the holiday celebrates white English settlers arriving in North America. The tales usually include some peaceful sharing of food between the white settlers and native Americans (a nice myth without much actual historical support) prior to the first winter. Canada’s back story on Thanksgiving is much more complicated, including ships getting stuck in ice and other legends.

In both Canada and the USA, the celebration includes tons of food (per person) including a roast (usually) turkey. Other foods may include mashed potatoes, yams (sweet potatoes), other meats, pies, corn, stuffing, and more food. It is a high calorie meal of epic portions!

There’s a legend that eating this meal, specifically the turkey, fills your body with tryptophan, and you fall asleep.